The Lost Years
by Hardcore Heathen
Summary: The first six years of Uzumaki Naruto's life are a carefully concealed mystery, most especially from the boy himself. Those hidden years, years of betrayal, death, and absolute servitude have been lost...until now. Recently rewritten
1. I: Root

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Author's Notes: Rewriting is a bitch.

**Lost Years – Chapter One**

The cradle was a simple object of unfinished wood, its precious cargo protected from splinters and protruding nails by a naught but a thick layer of baby blue blankets. It was a seemingly fitting color for the two day old baby boy inside, yet strikingly at odds with the atmosphere surrounding him. The baby's name, Uzumaki Naruto, was known only to his mother, an experienced kunoichi with a fiery personality to match the red of her hair. Sadly, her existence and disappearance was unknown to the men of the chamber in which her son now found himself.

Numerous people in stark black formal robes of mourning surrounded the cradle, each speaking just loudly enough to be heard over the intermittent cries of the baby. They would exchange their black clothing for more normal attire in another seven days, but the results of their words and decisions about the child would echo far longer.

Naruto would always be something of a hell raiser, even in the tiniest of ways.

But right now, the words were disturbing little Naruto's rest, and to him, that was all that really mattered.

One voice cracked with age, droll sarcasm biting and sounding cruel even though Naruto had no idea what those words, or indeed, any other words, meant. He shifted in his cradle, tiny hands clutching ineffectually at the air. The Old voice wasn't nice.

Another voice responded, calm and steady, yet slow and tired, with seemingly ancient experience. Its tones were of soothing moderation, and Naruto began to settle. It sounded old without being decrepit. He liked the Tired voice.

Old grumbled quietly, but not quietly enough that his bitterness didn't reach the cradle. Apparently the rest had heard as well, and though Tired was silent, a higher pitched female voice trumpeted a loud agreement. The shrill voice went straight to his head, and he wailed to drown it out. Shrill quieted for a moment, but then spoke over him.

Thankfully she was cut off quickly by another that could only be called Power. Control radiated from the raspy voice, and Naruto stopped crying to listen to it. If he'd known he was breathing, he'd have held his breath to hear Power better. Sadly, babies are somewhat limited in cognitive functioning, being limited to weak human instinct. But weak as human instinct is, it was still enough to tell him to _be quiet._

Old apparently had much weaker instincts, and tried to interrupt Power. Another voice immediately derailed him, but Naruto had by then lost interest in the voices in favor of the spinny glowy thing on the ceiling above his cradle. It sent a cool draft down on him, and he giggled and reached for the glowy. When his chubby little fist closed on nothing, he began to wail.

This had the convenient side effect of drowning out another one of those annoying voices. A voice that could only be described as Loud gave up, throwing his hands in the air and stalking off, yelling. Naruto would have cried, but the voice was going away, so his world had just gotten a lot better.

Where was he again? Oh, right. Glowy!

Sadly, the glowy hadn't gotten any closer, and taunted him with its protruding spinny things. He cried at the injustice, flailing furiously in a futile attempt to reach it.

Naruto tired of that game quickly, and turned the focus of his bright blue eyes on the crib. This lasted for maybe half a second before the crib was defined as "not fun." In his search for something more entertaining, a corner of the blanket soon found its way into his mouth, and Naruto sucked on it contentedly, preoccupied with the new and interesting flavor of cotton.

Fabric-y.

Satisfied with his accomplishments for the day, Naruto began to slowly drift to sleep, until Shrill pierced through his happy haze. He wailed back at her, his voice rising to deafening levels when he realized that his blanket had fallen out of his mouth.

Power spoke.

Naruto was silent.

And when Power quieted, Tired immediately stepped in to fill the void of sound, filling the room with world-weary agreement. The rest muttered assent with varying degrees of enthusiasm even as sandalled feet shuffled towards Naruto, the sound clacking noisily on the marble floor.

When Power gently lifted him out of cradle and rewrapped the blankets, Naruto stared at the first face he'd ever seen in his entire life. It was big. And kind of messed up on one side, and covered in white strips of cloth on the other.

But he didn't really know what faces were supposed to look like, so he allowed himself to be lulled back to sleep by the soft, hoarse voice that continued to speak to the other voices, holding their attention and radiating command, finishing an argument it had already won.

Power left the other voices with the cradle tucked under one arm, unsteady gait slowed to keep from jostling his prize. As the rest of the voices faded into the distance, baby Naruto smiled for the first time in his short, sleepy life.

He liked Power.

* * *

Two figures in white ANBU masks stepped from the shadows, taking position a step and a half behind their leader. No questions were exchanged, and even though it was obvious that Danzo was having difficulty with the cradle, neither offered assistance.

Most Root members were not encouraged to use personal initiative. If Danzo wanted them to carry the cradle, they would carry it. If he wanted them to set it ablaze, baby and all, they would burn it and then wait to hear what to do with the ashes.

The back door of a twenty-four hour ramen stand was opened in advance for the Root Commander, who gave a slight nod of acknowledgement to the "waiter." The scent of soup broth, salt, assorted vegetables, and meat filled his nose, and he resisted the urge to sigh in relaxation at the familiar smell.

The waiter closed the door behind his ANBU escorts, and Danzo heard him walk around the kitchen partition to the front of the stall, resuming his position behind the bar. To Danzo's left, the lid on a pot of ramen danced slightly from the heat of the dimmed stove. The bowl would probably go to waste; there wasn't much of a demand for a ramen stall at midnight. Which was exactly why they used it, of course.

One of his escorts twisted the dial on a broken stove completely around three times, then back to the left. The appliance sank into the floor, becoming the first in a long series of steps, and the escort stepped out of the way.

Danzo hesitated at the top of the stairs. He abhorred waste, and his throat was dry and scratchy after having to deal with the Council. Without looking back, he said, "Get a bowl of miso and follow after me." His smoke-scarred throat made speaking difficult and turned his voice into little more than a growl, but it wasn't that much of a change from normal.

As he descended the stairs, he contemplated the odd twist of fate that had brought him to his current position. It had been a twist forced on him by that one woman – no, that _kunoichi_ he corrected himself. The kunoichi who'd left him buried beneath a burning tree, yelling at him, "I have to help my son."

The stairway finally ended in a narrow corridor, the concrete walls wide enough for only one person to pass at a time. Turning to the left, he walked directly through an illusory section of the concrete. Most of the security measures were more useful for impressing new members than actual security, but, considering that the design and construction of death traps was the ninja equivalent of interior decorating, it was to be expected. _'The long wall of mirrors is perhaps a bit much'_ he thought as he passed them. He didn't particularly enjoy seeing the burned ruin of his face at the moment. He wasn't bitter about the scars; they might help intimidate the weak-minded fools he seemed to always be surrounded by. It was just that the reminder of his moment of weakness marred his triumph of obtaining the Kyuubi for Root.

The red-headed kunoichi was barely an afterthought in comparison. She was more of an enigma than anything else, and one that he might never solve. If she revealed herself, he would take appropriate action, but she had most likely been killed by the Kyuubi. Hunting for her would probably be a waste of valuable resources.

He'd never liked relying on "probably."

But for now, that matter could wait. He had a bowl of ramen and a baby to deal with. Ever the logical, hard-working pragmatist, Danzo decided to deal with the ramen first.

It might get cold.

The hall of mirrors ended in a low-ceilinged, well lit chamber with thin wooden slats covering the concrete walls. Danzo had forbidden "additional security measures" in the common rooms and private quarters, so he could finally relax and take a seat on a cheap, battered couch that might have been blue sometime in the distant past. Root could afford better, but as it stood the couch contributed to the casual feel of the room, and that was something quite hard to obtain in a hidden base.

He placed the cradle on the cushion next to him, careful to position it so that it couldn't tip off the couch. Stretching out his arm, he beckoned for the bowl with one hand. When the bowl was handed to him, along with a pair of chopsticks, he propped his feet up on a waist-high wooden coffee table with an uneven back leg.

He ate loudly, the sounds echoing throughout the silent corridors that connected to the common room. It was a common courtesy to announce one's presence upon entering the lounge, and everyone had their own unique way of greeting their fellows. Within minutes, his arrival would be known throughout the base.

Once the ceramic bowl was empty of all but the chopsticks, he set it down on the table. Only then did he turn to his stoic escorts, each of whom was still standing at attention.

"Your analysis?" he demanded, commanding tone of voice at odds with his relaxed posture.

The taller of the two stepped forward and saluted briefly. "The opposition of Utatane-san was unexpected, though it did work in our favor. Hyuuga-donou's distaste for her meddling in his affairs brought him to our side."

"Sarutobi gave up too easily," the shorter one answered, voice barely a whisper. His opinion hadn't been asked for, but he was well aware that he needn't fear reprimand for speaking out of turn like most Root members.

Danzo turned his head towards the taller ANBU. "Your duties are complete for tonight, Enoki. Itachi, you stay."

Enoki saluted, pivoted, and crisply marched out of the room without a backwards glance. Once Danzo was alone with his erstwhile bodyguard, he spoke again. His voice reflected only feigned surprise when he asked, "Why do you think Sarutobi gave in too easily?"

It was impossible to determine Itachi's expression behind the mask, but Danzo doubted the boy would give anything away even without it. "He's a sentimental old man," Itachi began. When Danzo didn't contest the opinion, he continued, "And the Kyuubi child appears to be naught but that: a child. I expected some sort of intervention to try and raise the Kyuubi as a normal child to see if it could become human."

Danzo arched a still-singed eyebrow. "And you believe that his…sentimentality would compromise his judgment?"

Itachi didn't hesitate in his response. "Yes."

Without giving a sign of a positive or negative reaction to his ANBU's blatant disrespect to the Hokage, a technical superior, he announced, "Dismissed."

He sighed gustily and craned his head back to look up at the overly bright ceiling lights. Not a mention of the vocal theatrics he'd pulled, or of how the Kyuubi itself had voiced its opinion from the cradle, or even more importantly, who _wasn't_ saying anything. Still, Itachi was very young. Maybe with a few more years, his eyes would see more than just what the Sharingan showed him.

He'd never liked relying on "maybe," but, just like the kunoichi, it was a matter that could wait. He frowned down at the cradle. Right now he had to find a wet nurse, several caretakers, and area of the base that could be converted to a nursery.

Root's newest member needed to have proper quarters made and to be suitably equipped, and Danzo had no interest in being the one to change that "equipment."


	2. I: Danzo

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Author's Notes: Well. It's been rewritten at the advice of someone I trust very much. Don't have much else to say. Except that…I think he was right.

**Lost Years: Chapter Two**

Suitable quarters for the Kyuubi child had been finished before he'd even arrived, of course. It had been a simple matter of assembling a permanent cradle in an unused room and finding a Root kunoichi capable of giving milk. Itachi had probably ordered both; no one else was likely to have made arrangements without asking Danzo's permission. The Uchiha scion always did expect victory in Root's endeavors, though at least he'd had the foresight to have the room empty when Danzo arrived, baby in arm.

Later, Danzo would modify the room for his specific needs, but for the moment, it would have to do. As he reclined on the visitor's chair of the makeshift nursery, watching the baby human form of the Kyuubi sleep, he couldn't help but let his mind drift. It was amazing that the Yondaime had been able to conjure such a perfect human simulacra for the demon to inhabit. Amazing, and suspicious. The Fourth had never been noted for extreme medical knowledge, and the baby's only "off" characteristic was the full head of blond hair.

A sudden itch broke the train of thought. He raised his left arm to scratch at his face, but caught himself before he'd begun to scrape the fragile, growing skin on his burned face. He moved the arm a bit and gently massaged the bandaged area over what had been the torn ruin of his right eye. Somewhat unsurprisingly, he found his thoughts wandering to the day that had destroyed his face and his right arm.

It wasn't a hard day to recall. After all, it had only happened two days ago.

* * *

_Two days ago..._

He hadn't been in the field for years, but on a night like tonight, he had to be. Even if he wasn't at the front, Root needed to be able to see their commander doing more than hiding in a shelter. Besides, fleeing from the Kyuubi, the single greatest threat to the village in decades, would strike a mortal blow to his pride.

From his current position in the boughs of a massive oak, halfway between the battle and Konoha, he was perfectly positioned to relay orders. Groups headed out to the battle could be given messages and the steady trickle of wounded kept him well aware of the futility of the fight. He'd just finished redirecting a retreating group of wounded shinobi to a hastily formed bivouac not five minutes ago when he saw her.

If Hyuuga Masaru, his only agent in that most noble of families, hadn't been among that group of wounded, maybe he would have paid more attention. As it was, he was distracted with the potential complications of replacing Masaru, and gave the woman little more than a cursory inspection.

Her waist-length red hair was tangled and knotted, and her face was smudged with smoke. The dark blue kimono she wore had been completely ripped off at mid-thigh, and by the frantic way she was running, he guessed it was intentional. He didn't recognize her, so she wasn't Konoha shinobi.

Maybe he'd have paid more attention if he hadn't been cursing all stupid civilians under his breath. Maybe if he hadn't dealt with a dozen thrill-seekers already, he'd have noticed that she wasn't out of breath, or that she moved with enough awareness of her body that her long hair never snagged on anything.

But, maybe was only maybe. He'd never counted on it, so lamenting it didn't make much sense either.

He appeared in front of her in a swirl of Shunshin-accompanied leaves, pure white ANBU mask gleaming in the dim light of the sunset. Never let it be said that Danzo didn't have a flare for the dramatic.

"Hold, woman," he barked, voice hoarse after an entire day of yelling and smoke inhalation.

She skittered to a halt, blinking slowly like a deer caught in the headlights. Her posture was confused, but unguarded. There hadn't been any indications of dropping into a fighting position…or maybe he was just reading too much into it, trying to assuage his self-doubt.

The endlessly repeated, by now almost ritualistic words of warning fell from bored lips, and he half hoped she'd decide to be fun. "By order of the ruling bodies of Konohagakure no Sato, civilians are not allowed beyond this point."

"W-why? I was just…" she trailed off nervously, staring at the blank visage of the ANBU mask. At the time, he'd thought he'd intimidated her, and had been disappointed at how easy it had been.

He crossed his arms and sighed to himself. "Right," he began sarcastically. "You just happened to wander directly towards the engagement point, and have no idea what's over there. You don't know what I'm talking about, or that a demon the size of the Hokage Monument is less than an hour away, despite almost six months of warnings, oh no."

Danzo had known about the approach of the demon for almost a year, but then, he was uniquely placed to have such information.

He uncrossed his arms and waved a hand back in the direction of Konoha. "Go home. This is not a spectator event, and God damnit tell that to all the other idiots you see on the way back. We have enough to deal with without sending valuable men to herd people stupider than sheep. At least sheep don't run _towards_ the wolf." The last had been said just loud enough for her to hear, and wonder if it was intentional. (It was.)

"My son is out there, damnit!" she yelled, hands balling into fists.

Danzo tensed, head straightening as he studied her carefully. The game had changed. Lost kids were something he couldn't actively ignore…unless her son was a genin? He asked, "Civilian?" to make sure.

She nodded.

_'God damnit,'_ he thought. _'As if I didn't have enough to deal with.'_ Still, he could probably just fob her off with directions to the bivouac. If Masaru was conscious, he might be able to locate the child. Or not. Either way, he'd have done his duty and be free from blame if anything happened to her or the child. It was, as far as he was concerned, the perfect solution.

He opened his mouth to give her directions, and the world exploded. The earth shook like a stormy sea, and for an instant, he was caught flat footed, unprepared for the latest Kyuubi shockwave. His aging body betrayed him, and was unable to focus on maintaining his balance. As his vision spun, he saw the woman surrounded by a familiar blue glow.

_'Kunoichi!'_

In his distraction, he didn't hear the sound of a roots tearing from the ground behind him. The massive, now-burning oak fell directly on his back, crushing him to the ground. The wind was driven from his lungs, and searing heat enveloped him, scorching his flesh. Jagged lances of pain speared through his back. He gasped like a landed fish and inhaled only smoke.

His head hit the dry, scorched earth with incredible force, shattering his ANBU mask into porcelain shards that cut deeply into his face. Blood covered his eyes, and he froze at his sudden blindness. To any normal person, hysteria would have been absolute, but pain was a familiar, fleeting acquaintance of Danzo's, and its burning kiss cleared the fog of confused surprise from his mind.

He coughed to clear his throat, and then dipped his head forward to breathe through the singed grass. It wasn't easy, but he managed to get enough air back to slow the dizziness in his head. Now he could begin to try and see how badly he'd been damaged.

He quickly found that his right arm was shattered; he could feel the bone protruding skyward from his arm in several places, as if it had seized upon a mad dream of becoming a bloody flower. His left arm was pinned beneath him, and he couldn't feel his legs. Rescuing himself from the burning oak would be an exercise in futility. But thankfully, he wasn't alone.

"Woman," he croaked, voice strained from smoke and a slowly collapsing rib cage. "I saw your jutsu. You're shinobi." Decades of training let his hears pick up the hitch in her breath over the roar of the flames. "I need your help," he continued, ignoring his pride. Right now, his body hurt worse. "Get this thing off me."

"I-I-I c-can't!" she stammered in response. He swiveled his head in the direction of the voice with some difficulty, obstructed as he was.

"I saw…your jutsu," he answered, the crushing weight of the tree beginning to get the best of him. "Stop lying." He was almost fifty damnit, he should be yelling at some teenager for being stupid enough to get trapped like this.

Silence was his only response. Damnit, he didn't have time for this! She wasn't a Konoha nin, but she hadn't tried to kill him, so she was the best he had to work with. But if she couldn't (or wouldn't) lift the tree…

"Bivouac a kilometer west. Hyuuga there. He'll find your kid. Get help for me," he grunted. With every word, he lost a little bit more air, and the tree all but prevented him from drawing breath.

The only response was the slow crackle of flames licking at his back. He had heard no receding footsteps; she was still there.

"Go!" he gasped, pinned arm clawing at the earth in a hopeless attempt to get himself more breathing room. She still didn't say anything, and he briefly thought that he might die here, watched only by an idiotic redhead.

Danzo had been about to yell again when she responded. "No," she answered, voice shaky but resolute.

With the last of his air he whisper-screamed, "Why?"

"You would stop me," she answered quietly. Before he could respond, she ran, feet pounding against the burned foliage of the formerly pristine Konoha woodland. Over his own pained breaths he heard her yell, "I have to help my son!"

He would have sighed in resignation to his fate, but he didn't quit that easily and sighing was a waste of precious air. Danzo had been through hell for Konoha. He'd served as a shinobi for almost his entire life, and it had been a long one by ninja standards. As the lack of oxygen began to set in, his body slowly became numb. He only managed to wish that he'd had a better death. Getting stuck beneath a tree was such an amateur move…

* * *

In the end, only the devotion of Masaru had saved him. The Hyuuga had information to report, and had insisted on delivering it to his Commander in person. Against all medical advice, he'd activated the Byakugan in search of Danzo.

The tenketsou in Masaru's eyes had literally exploded after thirty seconds. He'd still searched for the Commander, eyes fountaining blood, mind fogged with deeply ingrained obedience that let him ignore what must have been agonizing pain.

A mere five minutes after the woman had left, Root had arrived. They hadn't been able to save his arm or his eye, but that hardly affected his position as Commander. Root was a weapon for Konoha, a trained dog that answered to _his_ commands.

Masaru had made no mention of the woman before his death the next morning, and neither had Danzo, preferring to keep his minor failing private. The tendrils of Root stretched out far and wide into the underground of the Elemental Countries, and he would find the woman. Maybe not this year, but eventually. His fist clenched eagerly at the thought.

He roused himself from the past only when his fingernails drew blood from his palm. He blinked, the glowing red numbers of the wall clock glaring at him accusingly for wasting so much time in the past.

Danzo slowly raised himself from the chair, crutch held with no small degree of confidence. It was, just like anything, a potential weapon, and he knew weapons. Speaking of weapons…

"Sleep well," he called over his shoulder to the Kyuubi infant, who squirmed in his slumber at Danzo's voice. As the door closed between him and the Kyuubi child, Danzo whispered an old curse quietly. "You have an interesting life ahead of you."

But even as he tried to distract himself with thoughts of Root's latest acquisition, he couldn't help but wonder what had become of that red haired kunoichi.


	3. I: Kushina

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Author's Notes: If you're a previous reader reading this from Story Alert, skip to the announcement next chapter. Lost Years has been rewritten.

**Lost Years – Chapter Three  
**

Uzumaki Kushina woke uneasily, aching from the ceaseless jostling of the wood she rested against. The creak of poorly maintained wooden wheels spiraled into her brain, causing a pounding headache to go along with the rest of her discomfort. She opened gummy eyes and shook her head furiously to get her long red hair out of her face. Then she blinked, not fully understanding her surroundings.

She was on roughly constructed wooden cart currently trundling slowly along a backwoods path. The shock of every tiny pebble the cart went over went directly to her backside, and she winced at a particularly sharp jolt. The front half of the cart was occupied by several large crates, blocking a large portion of the vehicle, including any other occupants, from her view. She leaned forward to try and get a better look at the forest.

Something jerked along her wrist, and she heard a metallic clinking noise. Kushina tugged her arm again without looking down. Metal dug into her wrists, and she heard the metallic clink of chain links. Her eyes fell to the undeniable proof of her captivity: iron manacles and a rusty metal chain bolted into the wagon bed.

She was a prisoner? Had Konoha already discovered her assassination of their Yondaime?

No…that wasn't right. The shoddy cart and the lack of excruciating torture didn't hint at Konoha, or any other ninja village, really. Captives were taken for information or revenge, and the gruesome end result was always the same. But where was she then? Damnit, she didn't have time for this; she had to find Naruto!

Kushina risked a loud, mostly faked groan. The need for information about her captors outweighed any potential fear of them.

She heard somebody near the front of the cart, out of her line of sight, mutter something. Another voice responded, and wooden sandals impacted on the dirt with an audible thud. They clattered noisily as their wearer strode into her line of sight, and she resisted the urge to wrinkle her nose in disgust.

The man wore an unbuttoned vest of some cheap, homespun material. It opened wide enough to give her a more than generous view of his exceedingly large, fatty breasts. The less that was said about his stomach the better, and she could smell cheap liquor a dozen feet away.

His step was steady enough though, and by the squint of his narrow eyes, set deep in his fat little face, she could tell that he probably wasn't too drunk at the moment. It must be a rare occasion in the man's life.

He trundled his way to the side of the wagon and fell in step with its slow movements. He craned his neck forward, carefully examining her. A pudgy hand reached up to wipe a thin layer of sweat off of his forehead, brushing greasy brown locks of hair out of his eyes in the process.

She looked back at him with half-lidded, dazed looking eyes. A grin cracked open the man's piggish face, presenting Kushina with his somewhat shockingly well maintained array of teeth.

It took a small amount of effort to confine her reaction to a slight lolling of her head when the fat man clambered onto the wagon. He plopped himself down at the opposite side and leaned back against the crates, breathing heavily.

Kushina had been trained to observe just what her enemies were focusing on, though the finer points were somewhat unnecessary in the face of the man's lewd gaze at her partly covered chest. Somewhere along the line the top half of her already loose shirt had been ripped badly.

"So ye're awake, girly."

His deep voice was surprisingly pleasant, given how unpleasant the man himself was. She mumbled some gibberish in response; there might have been a few "what's" in the string of nonsense.

The man's grin widened. "A bit addled, are ye? Well, 't makes no diff'rence to old Hisao here. We might not 'a had the time to…examine…" he paused to chuckle at his own wit, "ta' goods jes' yet, but dun you worry. We'll reach ta' others soon, an' then we can all have a nice, good look-see, eh?" He burst into outright laughter at that, though his eyes never left her.

"Goods? What are you…" she cut herself off, shaking her head slowly again. It would be best for her to be underestimated at this point. The fat man, Hisao, didn't look like he was a shinobi, but then, that would be the point. At least her restraints indicated they didn't think she was any sort of a real threat.

Hisao waved his chubby arms in the air in apparent joy. "I thought ye'd never ask!" he exclaimed loudly.

"Keep it down back there, damnit!," came a yell from the front of the wagon. "My fucking head…" was moaned at a more reasonable volume.

Hisao nodded to himself in a jokingly exaggerated fashion, and began to "whisper" in a very audible voice to her. "Well, durin' all that confusion wi' ta' demon fox, bunches a' stuff got tossed all about. Somebody had to be ta' good guys and pick up all a' the pointy objects so nobody'd hurt 'emselves." He gestured towards the boxes he was resting against with a pudgy hand, and his grin widened at the mention of his altruism.

She had to work hard to not scowl at him. She'd been caught by scavengers, parasites who thrived on war and the battles of others. No wonder she hadn't been raped yet; they must have been fleeing from any possible Konoha pursuit all night. Ninja villages didn't appreciate looters stealing valuable equipment and desecrating their dead.

"And a' course, we kep' an eye out fer lost little girlies like yaself. Couldn' jes' let ye wander around all by yer lonesome, eh?"

Kushina responded only by backing up as far as her chains would let her. She didn't trust her voice at the moment; it might betray her killing intent.

Hisao began edging towards her, eyes never leaving her legs. "Now, be a good little girl and dun kick too much. I'm thinkin' it's 'bout time fer that inspection a' the goods…an' try not te' scream too much, will ye? Wouldn' wanna upset ma friend's hangover…"

She pulled her legs in close to her chest and put her unshod feet against the rough wood of the wagon. Hisao had risen to his knees and waddled forwards, hands outstretched to ward off any potential kicks. Her hands were chained too short to let her punch him.

When Hisao was no more than two feet away, she let loose. Chakra surged to her legs, and she dug her toes in, cracking the wood to get a better grip. Kushina lunged forwards, the bolts holding her manacled right fist getting ripped out of the wood in the process.

The low uppercut connected solidly with Hisao's bulging stomach, and she could feel the bone of his spine pressing against her knuckles. Blood flew over her shoulder as the fat man vomited violently from his sudden internal hemorrhaging. A vicious headbutt to the nose sent him stumbling backwards, blood seeping from beneath his eyes. Hisao crashed into one of the crates, and was silent.

Kushina shook her head to clear the lingering double images. Bastard had a hard head!

The wagon came to a sudden stop, and Hisao's companion yelled an irritable question about the racket. Kushina was too busy shoving the fat man's corpse aside to bother with his companion. They scavenged weapons, so…

She paused for a moment to grin triumphantly when she discovered the crates hadn't been sealed. The lid of the topmost crate went clattering to the forest floor, and Kushina barely bothered to listen to the rapidly approaching, furiously swearing wagon driver. She turned only when she felt a weapon handle in each hand.

"Hisao, what…the fuck?" the wagon driver uttered his words in shock, eyes only for his dead companion, whose nose had been driven clear back into his brain. He looked up when Kushina turned, a kodachi in each hand.

The man's narrow, wolfish face twisted with rage and his hand flew to a sword-handle at his belt. To his credit, his draw was quick and the blade was held with a certain degree of confidence indicating a fair amount of experience.

"Oh the bitch thinks she's tough now that she's got her hands on some weapons, eh? You're naught but a posturing tramp! Put the toys down, girl, and maybe I'll only cut off your feet. You won't be needing them in a brothel."

Kushina's eyes narrowed. The world blurred, and she landed lightly behind the sword toting wagon driver. The brief tunnel vision effects of her Shunshin limited her senses drastically, but she still had a good idea where the man was. She lunged backwards with her foot, catching him in the shoulder. He stumbled away, clutching the dislocated arm in agony.

She used the momentum of her kick to flip forwards. The moment her feet touched the ground, she whirled and charged, one kodachi held backwards along the length of her arm, the other pointed forwards in a more traditional grip. Unfortunately, she'd dislocated the wrong arm, and the katana whistling through the air at neck height was a complete surprise. But still not unavoidable.

Dropping to the ground, she rolled forwards and used her hands to spring upwards feet first, catching the wagon driver in his stomach and launching him into the air. The katana, which had already begun its backswing, clattered to the ground from the man's nerveless fingers.

Had she been less angry, Kushina might have paused to admire his hang time.

The man moaned painfully from the ground a half dozen feet away. "You fucking bitch…"

One of the kodachi implanted itself in the dirt next to his face, angled so that the blade ran across his throat. A thin red line of blood appeared beneath the wickedly sharp weapon.

Before he could reach for the handle, the other kodachi landed across the other side of his throat, forming a cross of steel. Kushina loomed forwards, stomping her right foot onto the man's chest and resting her toes on the blunt back edge of the blades. His initial gasp of air at the stomp was followed by frantic, tiny wheezes as he tried to keep from breathing too heavily and slitting his own throat.

"I do more than think I'm tough," Kushina remarked. In her mind, battlefield banter really worked best when you'd already won. Before that it was just posturing.

He spat up at her foot from beneath his precarious position, scowling even in the face of imminent decapitation. "Should have known you were one of Konoha's. Thought we lucked out when you didn't have a headband."

Kushina smiled humorlessly. "You can still luck out with your head attached to your shoulders if you tell me what I want to know." Best to let him labor under the assumption that he'd attempted to kidnap an actual Konoha shinobi, as opposed to a former genin of a now nonexistent country.

The captor turned captive sneered up at her, split lip slightly ruining the threatening expression. "Whatever, bitch."

Her smile disappeared. "Call me that again, and I can stop asking you nicely." Merely holding the threat of death over him without actually hurting him too badly _was_ rather generous by the shinobi mindset.

The sneer didn't waver. "Fine, _your Highness."_

Kushina nodded and crossed her arms. "Much better. Now…I want you to tell me everything you know about what happened to the Kyuubi. I kind of missed that, thanks to you."

"How do I know you're not going to kill me when you get what you want?" the man asked shrewdly.

She grinned wickedly and pressed down with her toes, scratching his neck ever so slightly with the blades. "I'll kill you don't."

Closing his eyes and resigning himself to his fate, the man began the story. "Well, Katsu heard that – "

"Who is Katsu?" The fat man had called himself Hisao.

"I guess he's the man in charge, at least as much as anyone." Her silence prompted him to lick his chapped lips nervously and continue. "There's a few more of us; we split up after everyone got as much as they could. We were supposed to meet up later tomorrow, a few miles up the road."

Kushina snorted. "I don't care what the rest of your scum friends are up to. Now, what did Katsu hear?"

"Your Yondaime is dead," he answered triumphantly. Kushina sighed with relief. She'd made it in time. The man continued, "Apparently his sealing jutsu was a suicide technique."

Her breath caught. Suicide technique? Was Konoha attempting a cover-up, or had he really…

"Explain," she demanded through gritted teeth, punctuating the word by grinding her heel into his sternum.

"Agh! Stop! I don't know!"

"Guess, or you can try answering without a head. _Both_ of them."

He broke down into babbling. "I don't know anything! He managed to seal the Kyuubi into a human form, a baby or something! I don't know anything about jutsu or –"

She shoved downwards as hard as she could with her foot, ignoring the spray of blood that covered her entire body without even blinking. She closed her eyes and felt, as if from a great distance, that her fingernails had drawn blood from her palms. With no small effort, she relaxed her fingers. Eyes empty, she looked down at the headless scavenger.

Shrugging her shoulders, she said, "You broke our deal. That was _not_ what I wanted to know."

* * *

Several hours later she stumbled away from the burning wreckage of the scavenger camp, the crusted blood covering her arms to the elbows slowly flaking as she moved. She'd left the two wakizashi back at the scavenger camp, buried in some woman's gut and a still weakly screaming man's crotch.

Katsu had been much more knowledgeable about events than she'd thought he would be. Konoha had spread the word quickly: the Yondaime had died to kill the Kyuubi.

Nobody really believed that, least of all Kushina. Minato hadn't kidnapped their, no, _her_ son for no reason; he'd done it because he needed a sacrifice. Whether the Kyuubi was dead or not was irrelevant. All that mattered was that her son was now…was now a jinchuriiki. She didn't bother to choke back the salty tears that streamed down her face or the snot that ran from her nose and clumped in her hair at the thought.

Power of the Human Sacrifice. She laughed hollowly at the noble sounding euphemism given to children who were forced to become living containers for the nigh-omnipotent demons known as Bijuu. They were, without exception, incurably insane, tainted by powers beyond human understanding. Creating a jinchuriiki was no more noble a sacrifice than carving the child open an altar to a dark god, and now...the dark god had taken her son, her lover, and her home.

_'What now?'_ she wondered, mind bleak. She'd spent the last year of her life preparing for the child she had never before wanted, but who grew on her – literally and figuratively – every day.

'_God damn you, Namikaze Minato. God damn you.'_

The base of a tree was as good a place as any to stop. She leaned back against the tree, enjoying how the rough bark scraped against her skin. Cold dawn air burned her longs, and she took slow, deep breaths to keep her mind focused on the sensation.

Her life was gone. Whirlpool had fallen long ago, and Konoha was no longer a safe haven. The one person she'd implicitly trusted had completely betrayed her.

For an instant, she contemplated death, but discarded it quickly. After all, the only people she could think of killing were already dead.

The distant, flickering flames consumed her attention for an interminable time. Her mind drifted back through time. So Hidden Villages hadn't worked out. Neither had motherhood. Her fingers traced idle patterns in the grass as she reflected on her life. One common thread ran throughout.

She took orders. Whether it was from her sensei, her commander, or _him,_ someone always led her.

Maybe it was time to try leading herself.

The tears stopped, and the knot her throat slowly faded. She slowly drifted into sleep, lulled by warming thoughts of living completely independent from the world which had so thoroughly rejected all her efforts.


	4. Rewrite Explanation

**Announcement and Explanation!**

If you were following Lost Years prior to the upload of Chapter Three, you might be confused by the new ordering of the story. Allow me to explain.

At the advice of a friend of mine, I rewrote Lost Years so that Chapter Three would be Chapter One, and that what had been Chapters One and Two would become Two and Three. I apologize for any confusion this may have caused, but I feel that it was in the best interests of delivering to you a quality story.

You might also notice that the emphasis is now not entirely focusing on Kushina. This is intentional, and always was. Part of the problem with the original setup of the story is that it put forth the expectation that Kushina would be the main character of the story, when in fact she is not. Naruto is. (Kushina will still play a major role and appear quite often, don't worry.)

This announcement will remain up for another chapter or two to make sure that everyone to whom it is relevant has read it.

-Hardcore Heathen


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